FAA confirms rescue slide fell from jet

MESA, Ariz. (KSAZ) - A valley woman got a big surprise when an object fell from the sky and onto her home. The object was an escape slide that fell from an airplane that was landing at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The slide was so big that it filled the back of a pickup truck, on the way down it snapped tree branches before landing in a Mesa woman's front yard.

"I just heard literally a bang on the roof, and the house actually shook. I came out front, opened the door, noticed that there was like a silver tarp in my front yard, but it had a sulfur smell to it, so I called 9-1-1 because it wasn't something that was blowing from the wind. It fell from the sky," said Andrea Self.

Andrea is used to hearing noise from airplane engines, her home near Dobson and Rio Salado is in the airport flight path.

"Because of the amount of planes going over I thought it had to have fallen from a plane," she said.

The FAA confirms that theory, they say the slide dropped from a Boeing 767 freighter belonging to a charter company Atlas Air. The plane was landing last week when the slide deployed and fell to the ground near Riverview Park and the Cubs Spring Training facility.

"I am grateful actually where it fell because the park it was so populated all the time and the intersection. I did a lot of what if's, what if I was out here, what if the kids were out here," said Self.

After calling 9-1-1, Mesa Police came and took the slide away. The FAA says they are still looking into why the slide unexpectedly deployed.

It appears this has been a problem in the past, the FAA earlier in 2016 proposed plans to require fixes to 767 aircraft to prevent the slides from deploying unexpectedly. FOX 10 asked Atlas Air for comment, but they have yet to reply.

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